The urban prairie

Detroit farms connect people, food

By Marti Benedetti

William Pugliano

Ashley Atkinson is director of urban agriculture and product development for the Greening of Detroit. The collaborative includes 320 family gardens and 170 community gardens, including this community garden at Wilson playground on Lonyo.

urban

More than 300 years after its founding, a portion of Detroit is returning to its agrarian roots.

Take a drive through the city’s east side neighborhood streets. Travel through sections of Brightmoor and the North End. Walk along Linwood on the city’s near west side. Vacant land abounds. But slowly, along these nearly empty streets, acreage is beginning to take shape as gardens and farm plots.

Bill Knudson, Michigan State University agriculture economist, said Detroit is among the cities showing leadership with urban farming. “It is catching on in more than one city,” Knudson said, adding that it is popular in Washington, D.C.

“Traditional supermarkets have moved out of the inner cities and created a food desert,” Knudson said.

“These farm communities increase access to healthier food and fresh produce to inner-city people … land around Detroit has an opportunity to be productive.”

Detroit has better farmland than northeast Michigan because of its underlying fertility as farmland 100 years ago, he said.

On the forefront of the urban farming movement in Detroit is the Garden Resource Program Collaborative, which is an umbrella organization for the Greening of Detroit, Capuchin Soup Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm (www.cskdetroit.org), Michigan State University and the Detroit Agriculture Network (www.detroitagriculture.org). Coming on board is Southfield-based Urban Farming, which has a partnership with Wayne County to farm 20 of the county’s foreclosed properties.

Ashley Atkinson, director of urban agriculture and product development for the Greening of Detroit, estimated that 27 percent of the city is vacant land. The collaborative, which has been keeping detailed records for five years, includes 320 family and 170 community gardens for a total of 80 acres.

“We have a high return rate, meaning people who get into farming here stay around,” she said.

The collaborative, formed in 2003, grows 41 different fruits and vegetables, and has extended its season into the fall so there are multiple harvests. The yield, which last year totaled 120 tons, is sold at farmers’ markets and to restaurants and food banks, but the majority ends up on family tables, she said. Many of the volunteers live near the farms they work on.

“We have the first opportunity for our city to be food-sufficient. We’re getting there, and it’s exciting to be part of that. The rest of the country is coming awake to the fact that food of the future needs to be local and grown in urban areas, where most of the people are,” Atkinson said.

In November 2007, the Wayne County treasurer’s office entered into an agreement with Urban Farming to use 20 tax-foreclosed vacant properties to grow produce that would be free to neighborhood residents and local food banks. The gardens were planted in May.

Wayne County Treasurer Raymond Wojtowicz said the county wants to use these parcels that are mostly in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods as a pilot project.

He said he hopes that when people volunteer to work on the sites, they may bring others with them who might be interested in buying the property and redeveloping it.

A number of restaurant owners are also dabbling in gardening. Todd Wickstrom is teaming up with Phillip Cooley, co-owner of Slows Bar BQ, to open Mercury Coffee Bar in Detroit’s Corktown area, across the street from Slows. The pair planted 40 pounds of garlic in an urban garden just south of I-94.

Wickstrom said he hopes to boost the local farming community by using locally grown produce. He also co-founded New York-based Heritage Foods USA in 2001.

The food broker helps small farmers sell their goods to restaurants and stores across the U.S., including Bastone in Royal Oak and Bowers Harbor Inn on the Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City.

Lisa Richter, an urban farm worker at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm, said the philosophy of Earthworks Urban Farm and other city farming organizations is all about teaching.

“We feel we need to empower people to grow their own food,” Richter said “When people grow food and harvest it, healing and regeneration happen. They realize what they do can make a difference,” she said.

Richter said the farm was started by Capuchin Brother Rick Samyn in 1997. He has moved on to other projects, but the east side farm that shares property with the soup kitchen remains productive.

“The majority of the food — about 7,000 pounds a year — produced at Earthworks goes into meals at the soup kitchen,” she said. A small amount is sold at farmers’ markets through the organization’s youth farm stand. It also sells honey and jam during the holidays.

Urban Farming’s gardens have no fences and are open to anyone who needs food. Its mission is to rid the world of hunger, said founder Taja Sevelle.

Sevelle, a singer and songwriter from Minneapolis who now lives in Michigan, started the nonprofit in 2005. “We started with three gardens. We gave away a ton of food,” Sevelle said.

She added that her organization now has several gardens in Detroit and in cities all over the world. One of the largest Urban Farming gardens is off Linwood on Gladstone on Detroit’s near west side.

The street is marked by a large burned-out building from the 1967 riots. The entire block was empty, but Urban Farming’s garden stretches from nearly one end of the block to the other, with a small garden across the street.

“The gardens have created hope in the community. People work on them who are all ages and races. We learned the gardens cut down on crime,” Sevelle said.

She said education and outreach is important to her group as well. “We teach about the environment, healthy eating and entrepreneurship,” Sevelle said.

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If you enjoy the content on the Crain's Detroit Business Web site and want to see more, try 8 issues of our print edition risk-free. If you wish to continue, you will receive 44 more issues (for a total of 52 in all), including the annual Book of Lists for just $59. That's over 55% off the cover price. If you decide Crain's is not for you, just write "Cancel" on the invoice, return it and owe nothing. The 8 issues are yours to keep with no further obligation to us. Sign up below.